Purse and wallet snatching in grocery stores and other stores utilizing the prevalent grocery cart is not as uncommon as one might think, two or three such incidents in a day not being a rare occurrence at some stores. A parallel problem that is at least as great as theft itself is the fear of theft in the cart pusher's mind. Because there is no way to enclose a purse in the cart, lady shoppers are afraid to leave the cart and especially in a crowded supermarket where cart traffic jams are a problem, a definite inconvenience is caused by the inability of the shopper to leave the cumbersome cart for a few moments to slip around the other carts in the traffic jam.
Although at least one shopping cart has developed for retaining a purse, such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,263,880, there is no truly secure grid-type compartment compatible to existing grocery cart structure.